


Healing Magic to Repair Collective Harm (For a Coven Based Practice)

by wellthen



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Apocalypse, Dark Magic, End of the World, Everyone Needs Therapy, F/F, Gothic, Magic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28939890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthen/pseuds/wellthen
Summary: “Is group uh... mandatory?”“Everything is mandatory when you’ve recently tried to blow up the world.” The Goth woman said. Willow nodded, trying to smile.A story about Magic rehab. WIP.
Relationships: Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	Healing Magic to Repair Collective Harm (For a Coven Based Practice)

**Author's Note:**

> Willow Rosenberg: I don’t like her. I don’t like her as a character, I don’t like her whole deal, I tend to react strongly when people tell me that she’s why they like that freaking show. 
> 
> She makes me really angry. 
> 
> That’s why I figured I probably had to write this. It’s annoying, so far. 
> 
> Anyway, it’s a story about magic rehab.
> 
> I hope you like it, or at least can understand.  
> ——

“It’s time for group.”

“Is it mandatory?” Willow asked.  
“Uh, yeah.” The woman said, staring at a point directly behind her. Willow glanced in that direction for a second (if there was one thing she had learned growing up in Sunnydale, it was to never take an empty room for granted). 

But the room, a standard dorm room — wood desk and chair, twin bed — looked the same to her.

“Everything is mandatory when you’ve recently tried to blow up the world.” The Goth woman said. Willow nodded, trying to smile. 

Not that this woman, seemed to care if she smiled, or about anything Willow did as long as she followed her down the white painted concrete hallway. When they got to the end of the hallway, the woman pulled out a key to unlock the chains around the bar on the door.

“It’s probably just for safety” Giles had said lightly as they passed it on the way in, shepherded by a different morose attendant. But whose safety?

“None of the room doors are locked,” the morose attendant had said.

Willow opted not to try the door anyway, after Giles left. Just in case. She didn’t want to know what she would do if it was.

—

As they walked down the hallway, Willow thought about ingratiating herself with this woman, the first person she seeen since Giles left her in the room (only hours ago? It felt like days). 

The Old Willow wouldn’t have been able to shut up as they walked down the hallway towards the elevator. She would have asked about the coven, the other woman’s life story, the rehabilitative justice model that the coven was working with (which she assumed they had since no one had yet drawn and quartered her for crimes against humanity). 

She would have complimented the girl’s studded skull and crossbones necklace even though she wasn’t sure if she liked it or just noticed it. She would have asked most of all about spells, so many questions about spells, a commonality she undoubted shared with this woman that had the added bonus or being something she was actually interested in.

In short, Willow would done everything possible to say to this woman “like me, like me, LIKE ME” short of yelling exactly that at the top of her lungs.

Remembering what the Old Willow would do made her skin crawl, literally. A kind of embarrassment so strong it showed up in her pores. Worse, that itching could set off even more of the behavior that inspired it. An attempt to get away that created an endless loop of neediness and appeasement. 

But the Old Willow was gone now. “Willow doesn’t live here anymore,” she had told Buffy as she sent knives flying at her face. 

Willow wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth when she said that or not.

—

The witch who had allowed Willow to stay here, either until her execution or... something else (Willow still wasn’t sure what that something else might be) kept looking at Willow as she spoke to Giles. She had smiled at both of them from across her desk with warmth, but a little distraction.

The witch’s office, if that’s what it was, was more work retreat center than prison cell — plants everywhere. No windows, but good lighting. A lot of crystals on every surface.

“We are a small but close knit coven, Mr. Giles, though our membership also includes many informal solo practitioners around the world. Perhaps you’ve been on our message boards.” she looked at Willow, who shook her head.

Willow had found the message boards when Ms. Calendar was still alive, lurking for weeks while trying to think of the exactly right thing to say to introduce herself. Then Ms. Calendar was dead and Willow didn’t have time to find the right thing anymore - she wrote a frantic post asking if anyone had an orb of methuselah + only one person responded, a witch in San Diego with useless, tedious sentences about safety and unholy powers and danger.

What did she know about danger?

Willow didn’t think about the boards again until Tara mentioned them while trying to figure out a wonky locator spell. 

But there wasn’t time to ask a bunch of Wiccan nerds to share useless safety tips. Buffy needed them. Willow had explained this to Tara until Tara looked down. When Tara looked up again, her face was unreadable. The first this happened, but not the last. 

—  
When they got to the elevator, the Goth woman looked at her. In the eye, this time.

“I heard you killed Osiris.”

Willow frowned.

“Who told you that?”

“I heard it.”

Willow looked at the woman expectantly until she continued.

“I hear things. On the wind. And you were really loud.”

“...Oh.”

Willow wasn’t really sure what else to say. 

Did this girl worship Osiris?

…Did this coven? 

If they did, she was already toast, so Willow just said,

“Yeah. It was a bad time for me.”

“I’m glad you did it,” the girl said, and smiled. 

Smiling usually softened someone’s features.

This girl’s smile sharpened them. 

Willow did not find it settling. 

“He killed my brother. And laughed at me while he died. Horribly.”

Willow didn’t say anything. 

The girl continued.

“So when you killed him, horribly, I laughed.  
They’re going to tell you all this stuff about balance, and power, and nature, and I just wanted to say that to you. Before they did.”

The girls smile was more conspiratorial now, like they had a crush on the same obscure indie movie actor.

“I’m glad I got to hear it. Sorry about your girlfriend.”

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. 

Willow attempted to return the girl’s smile, watching as she walked into the elevator, then said 

“You know what? I think I’ll take the stairs.”

The girl said “no, wait,” but before she do anything else, Willow waved her hands and the doors shut. 

It was okay though, because her eyes didn’t turn black. They stayed the right color. Probably. 

Willow walked quickly, with as much faint nonchalance as she could muster, to the stairs, then and ran to the bottom of the staircase. 

She pushed the emergency exit door open, wishing she could trust herself enough to cast a cloaking spell without turning veiny.

She found herself on the roof. A black top flat covered with vines, with some sort of awning, a dome of energy, covering the open air space. 

Though it had been bright and sunny when Willow had last stepped outside, on the roof, it was gray and drizzling.

In the middle of the dome was a set of eight folding chairs in a circle, four of them were occupied.  
The girl she had just abandoned gave her a half wave, looking apologetic. 

“Welcome, Willow. Thank you for joining us.” said a man in horn rimmed glasses and a green turtleneck.

“I’m Abdul, the group facilitator. One thing you should know: all exits in this building lead to the roof. Why don’t you take a seat?”

One man in the circle of folding chairs, with a high top fade and a bright yellow parka, cackled. 

“She’s a runner!” 

“Miles,” Abdul admonished. “We all have different stress responses.” 

Willow looked at the edge of the roof, then back at the exit door. Then she walked over to the ring of folding chairs and decided to sit down. 

Abdul smiled. 

“Wonderful,” he said. 

“Now that we’re all here, let’s begin.”


End file.
